Airwaves: Girlhood Remixed

Padmasree Warrior is the Chief Technology Officer for Cisco, the technology giant. Warrior is anomalous in her field — a technology industry, which has for years been dominated by men.

In fact, a recent study by the National Center for Women & Information found that women hold only 14 percent of senior management jobs at Silicon Valley startups. And the National Math & Science Initiative recently reported that just 23 percent of workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) jobs are female.

"When I first took my first job, I was among only a handful of women. It was isolating at times," Warrior wrote in a blog post last month.

Today, the situation is nearly as lopsided, and anecdotal reports out of Silicon Valley startups sound more like frat parties than business environments.

But a group of women at New Mexico State University are working to change that. Next week, the English Department will host the second annual Girlhood Remixed Technology Camp. About 25 Las Cruces-area girls, aged 10-13, will spend three days developing "digital literacy" and reexamining the gender stereotypes that have excluded women from the tech industry for too long.

The camp was developed by Jen Almjeld, an assistant professor of English at NMSU. While at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, she worked on a similar project. Last summer, she refined and redesigned the camp for local girls in Las Cruces.

"A number of research studies, including those by the American Association of University Women, suggest that it is during early adolescence that girls begin receiving cultural messages that technology is not for them," Almjeld explained.

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"We hope this camp is a fun and safe space where girls can interact with adult mentors and other like-minded girls as they explore the ways technology impacts their lives."

Locally, girls with a yen for technology may face other obstacles-including economic and cultural barriers which must be overcome. The camp will address those as well.

I spoke with assistant camp director Jen England this week and she explained, "Last summer, campers created movies, podcasts, and websites. This summer we are expanding on these technologies because we want to provide a mix of platforms. We know that not all girls will have access to expensive [software] packages, like Adobe, at home. Girls will work with iMovie, Photoshop, InDesign, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Prezi, Vine and other platforms to explore what it means to be a 'girl' in a digital world."

And that's what the Girlhood Remixed Camp is all about, really. Sure, it's fun to play with all the new technologies, but it's also about teaching them to critically reexamine gender stereotypes, and it seems to work.

"What we saw last year-and hope to see again this summer, are campers developing critical awareness of how girls are represented in online spaces, and how they choose to represent themselves," England said. "Additionally, we want to challenge the campers' perspectives on girls and technology by showing them that they can learn and succeed in what still often remains a male-dominated field, especially in areas like video game development."

The camp, funded primarily through a grant from the Hancock Family Foundation, will run July 17-19, at NMSU. The camp will conclude on Friday evening with a closing ceremony at 6 p.m., at which the girls will share the projects they've created.

It will be at the Health & Social Services Annex, Room 101A, and is open to the public. The brochure for the closing ceremony will also be created by campers.

This seems like a really cool project, and I'm proud of these women for investing their time and effort into the next generation of tech-industry leaders. By making an impression on young girls now, and shattering some stereotypes early, they may be shaping the future of American technology.

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